GOP consultant on hot seat over Rand attack

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and senior Republican officials are calling out a GOP firm that worked on a seven-figure ad campaign lashing Rand Paul over his foreign policy views.

The problem? The firm’s co-founder is also working for a McConnell-backed super PAC that’s defending the GOP Senate majority in 2016, when Paul is also on the Senate ballot in Kentucky.

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Last month, the Republican firm Black Rock Group was hired to do communications work for the Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, which bombarded Paul with a $1 million ad campaign calling him “dangerous” because of his positions on Iran. But Black Rock’s co-founder, Carl Forti, also works as the political director for American Crossroads, which has formed the Senate Leadership Fund, a McConnell-backed super PAC.

The awkward situation of Forti’s firm being paid to promote a political attack on Paul — while also trying to keep GOP senators like Paul in office — has prompted strong reactions in GOP circles.

“Leader McConnell was of course not aware of this activity,” said Brian McGuire, a top aide to McConnell, a fellow Kentucky Republican. “But those involved should know that in his view it’s completely unacceptable, and that no consultant who makes a living attacking members of his conference who are running for reelection should expect to do any business with the party committees.”

A senior official with the National Republican Senatorial Committee also had tough words. “What advisers do on the presidential level is their business, but if it starts affecting a 2016 Senate race, that is when we will have an issue.”

A senior Paul aide added: “An ad shouldn’t be run against a Republican candidate for Senate by anyone who is working to help elect Republicans running for Senate.”

Paul’s decision to seek Senate reelection — while also running for president — may, in a sense, play to his favor, if other GOP firms shy away from attacking him to avoid angering McConnell and the NRSC. McConnell is endorsing Paul for the GOP presidential nomination, but he’s said he would sit on the sidelines during the primary campaign.

In a phone interview, Forti said there’s no conflict between his firm’s work with Crossroads and the Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America. He said that while he works with Crossroads, the senior director at his firm, Lisa Boothe, was hired for communications on the ad campaign on a one-month contract. He contended he had no role in the anti-Paul communications strategy.

“I’m the one who works with Crossroads and Senate Leadership Fund, and Lisa was acting as spokesperson for the group, so you got different people within a company here,” Forti said. “So I don’t think there’s any conflict whatsoever.”

The situation highlights how the small group of high-level political operatives could find themselves in politically thorny situations, particularly during GOP primary season when their clients may have conflicting agendas. Operatives argue that firms often institute built-in firewalls to ensure no conflict arises when they represent candidates on opposing sides.

Yet even though Forti himself may not be directly involved in the anti-Paul campaign, his firm financially benefited from the contract, critics contend. Some top Republicans were quick to liken the situation to the 2014 cycle, when the NRSC blacklisted the advertising firm Jamestown Associates in retaliation for its work with the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that attacked McConnell and other GOP senators during the primary season.

The $1 million ad buy, launched in the four early primary states the week Paul announced his presidential run last month, said the junior Kentucky senator “doesn’t understand” the threat from Iran, calling him “ wrong and dangerous” for “siding with Obama.” The group, which doesn’t have to disclose its donors, is run by long-time GOP operative Rick Reed, who was traveling the week of the launch and hired Black Rock for communications help during that period, according to Forti. Reed did not respond to an email seeking comment.

After the ad ran, Boothe was quoted in newspaper accounts saying Paul’s views “do not reflect the concerns of conservatives across the country who rightly fear the threat from a nuclear Iran.”

“We haven’t seen any impact from that,” Paul said this week when asked how the ad campaign affected his poll numbers.

Steven Law, president and CEO of Crossroads, said Forti’s assurances that he was walled off from the anti-Paul effort alleviated concerns the group had on the matter. Law added that Crossroads has “zero connection” to the Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America or the ad itself. He said that Crossroads remains a “big admirer” of Paul and will support him “100 percent” in his Senate reelection or if he wins the GOP nomination for president.

“In the presidential primary, many of our consultants will be working for different candidates who are trying to win the nomination — it’s a fact of life that we and other groups are going to face,” said Law, a former McConnell chief of staff. “Our political conflicts test is going to be whether a consultant’s work for others prevents them from providing maximum effective service on what they do for us.”

Law said Crossroads is serving as the “management company” for the Senate Leadership Fund and will be directing its political activities as the new group gets ramped up. Law, who is also serving as the executive chairman of the Senate Leadership Fund, said he expects Forti to play a role in the new super PAC’s efforts.